Day 143: A Labor of Love

It is Labor Day in the USA, apparently, which we obviously did not know about, since we never know what day of the week it is and have fights about it at breakfast each day. In honor of said Labor Day, we have a post about *work* (labor, if you will) that makes it look like we planned this – the holiday and all to coincide with our post on *work*, your life, and happiness. The post is about living your dream, or at least living a tiny piece of it, or making your dream a palatable bite sized life possibility (if you can’t just quit life and do whatever it is you want to do, that not being always realistic) and then pressing go on that dream.


We are still at the Sri Lanta Resort, where we have gotten stuck for more days than expected, because a 29 year old German General Manager has done a spectacular job of making this so. Phillip, who speaks many languages, has a broken foot, and who we both want to marry (bets being accepted on who is winning this race thus far), quit his investment banking job in London in February with a big name you would all recognize in order to buy this resort. Why? Because, after not taking a vacation for three and a half years, he visited Thailand in February, liked the resort, and asked someone if it was for sale. So, he sold his life/car/flat in London, moved to Thailand, and is considering our suggestions that his first year as General Manager would be an excellent reality show a la that USA show about Rocco, The Restaurant. If you know anyone who does filming things, please let us know.


Why do you care about Phillip’s life? Because, even if you do not work at places that give you the income to quit life to buy a boutique resort on the island of Koi Lanta (contrary to popular belief, the numbers of said individuals are diminishing rapidly), there is probably something risky and off-the-beaten-path-ish in your life that will bring you much happiness but you don’t want to do because it is one of the following:

a. scary
b. not practical
c. not lucrative
d. hard
e. crazy
f. ______________(insert your particular issue here)

We think this is true because we are those people too, who have things like that that we want to do and are scared of, but actually did get off our ass (for once) on this particular traveling the world thing, and it has been great. It’s not that it is always all easy, though, and some years your father can accidentally see your taxes and ask your mother, “How can she live on that?”, but if you put your mind to it, there is a good chance that something you really like will work out.

Kind of like how our friend, Political Adam Clark, who is doing a great job of mobilizing the Free Lance masses, said just the other day: “What was that line from The Alchemist? The world is conspiring for your happiness. Something like that, but it's making more and more sense to me these days.”*

Seeing that the world is your oyster and all.

Finally, if we can do anything to help you, like, say, you want to be a model and you have a pretty fully clothed picture that you would like on this site or you need the number of a good golf cart to take you to night classes without getting attacked on the unruly Stanford campus (call: 5-SURE), do please enlist us at ClaireandLara@gmail.com. And if you can do anything to help each other, like picking up someone’s garbage or telling someone they have food on their face (in a good way), do that, because we all should help each other on this planet.

Because, as the Great Adam Tolnay (a different Adam) once said: “Let’s all be investment bankers of global goodness.”*


*Adam Tolnay, if you are reading this, you actually said something slightly different, but this sounded better. Thank you.

*Adam Clark, if you are reading this, you did say this exact thing, actually, although it was not your own genius, but Paulo Coelho’s. Thank you.

P.S. For anyone who grew up in a pre-cellphone city or state where pagers were popular, you will perhaps notice that today is Day 143, in pager code being the day of Love. This is, obviously, highly symbolic.